"Oh, Clay!" he burst out when he had answered the young man's friendly greeting, "it is an awful thing to lay open a mean man's meanness, and tell him the plain truth about himself."
"It is, indeed," the young doctor answered, "but perhaps it is heroic treatment your man needed, for I would infer that you have been reading the law to someone. Who was it?"
"Sam Motherwell," the minister answered.
"Well, you had a good subject," the doctor said gravely. "For aggravated greed, and fatty degeneration of the conscience, Mr. Motherwell is certainly a wonder. When that poor English girl took the fever out here, it was hard to convince Sam that she was really sick. 'Look at them red cheeks of hers,' he said to me, 'and her ears ain't cold, and her eyes is bright as ever. She's just lookin' for a rest, I think, if you wuz to ask me.'"
"How did you convince him?"
"I told him the girl would have to have a trained nurse, and would be sick probably six weeks, and then they couldn't get the poor girl off their hands quick enough. 'I don't want that girl dyin' round here,' Sam said."
"Is Mrs. Motherwell as close as he is?" the minister asked after a pause.
"Some say worse," the doctor replied, "but I don't believe it. She can't be."
The minister's face was troubled. "I wish I knew what to do for them," he said sadly.
"I'll tell you something you can do for me," the doctor said sitting up straight, "or at least something you may try to do."